Talk About Movies: Part 4

Rewatched Island of Lost Souls from 1932 yesterday. My goodness, there's some frankly brilliant pre-code Horror movies that came out of the US, and this is one of them. Creepy, eerie, and the stuff of nightmare fuel. 'The House of Pain'.... brrrr

I mean, consider The Most Dangerous Game, The Black Cat, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Old Dark House, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1932) and Island of Lost Souls. Those movies did not mess about.

Horror didn't get that horrific again, imo, until maybe Night of the Demon (1957), or arguably earlier, if Val Lewton gets under your skin, or you just take a look at the last story in Dead of Night (1945).

I miss Rick Nebiolo. We used to get in great arguments over Robert Mitchum. He wasn't a fan. He'd be wading in right now.

Robert Mitchum was great and especially in Out of The Past which was fantastic. But over the holidays I was watching In Harms Way and a guy popped up on screen and I had do a double take. I said Robert Mitchum is in this too? But it didn't track as the guy was 25 years too young and of course it was his son. Not sure what kind of career he had? But he was the spittin image of his father.

This looks like it could be surprisingly good in a silly/over the top sort of way. Which is exactly how a film like this should be instead of taking itself seriously.

Zero Day (2002)
Two teenagers make a video diary of their step by step plan to commit a Colombine style school shooting in this surprisingly effective, realistic and quietly disturbing found footage style film.

Double feature with Elephant (2003)?

Some years ago I saw the restored BoF and couldn’t get over imagining people watching it in 1935.

The trailer was enough for me.

And that’s far from everyone, it’s turtles all the way down. Anyone who hasn’t seen it recently remember what famous ‘70s rock star played the bartender?

I didn't list Bride of Frankenstein because it was post-code, but yeah, what a movie.

I actually preferred this one to Elephant, although I liked both. I just found this one ironically more realistic, despite it being a fictitious case, albeit clearly inspired by Colombine.

Judgement at Nuremberg (1961)
Never seen this one before and am kinda kicking myself I left it this long as it's really very good, with Maximilian Schell giving a great performance as the impassioned defence lawyer. The courtroom scenes are quite gripping.

I watched it with Rick. We get together for the Celtics and a movie every so often. Rick and I have been friends since college. We live four minutes from each other.

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Scene from Judgment at Nuremberg.

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I dhowed my class They Live tonight for examining ideology in film. I think they liked it. In my other class I showed Casablanca. They liked that one, too.

I told them for next week's film to send me suggestions. One student sent me two recommendations before I left the building: Heredity and The Princess Bride. She explained why Heredity is a good choice.

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The future is here and it’s awful. New flick featuring AI Val Kilmer.

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Not all that funny
Unlikeable characters
Very cheap jump scares

3/10

Perhaps the most overlooked scene—been trying to find it for a long time—in the Scorsese gangsterverse, but a fairly common move irl.

Undertone - A couple of young podcasters (horror/spooky genre) receive a mysterious email with 10 audio file attachments. the email is a bit spooky, and the audio files they listen to for their podcast gradually build up with intensity.

There are a lot of issues with this one, it's a bit dull in spots, their podcast production would be a nightmare to edit, they record episodes in multiple separate recordings. Not unheard of but at one point they even recorded when one of them suddenly had to go to work. The format alone took me out a bit.

But the overall mood and sound design sucked me in. All the while the girl is taking care of her dying mother who is no longer present. She lies there with shallow breath, but at night time, spooky things happen around the mother.

I won't say more, but I love the ride. It's apples to oranges, but the FEELING I had while watching reminded me of the feelings I had while watching Sinister and The Blair Witch Project, two films I hold in high regard. That's not meant to come off as hyperbole, just the feelings I had of excitement, fear, and dread.

Prada 2 lol.

Michael getting absolutely panned brings me great joy. Please kill these musician biopics for the foreseeable future.

I’m struggling to think of any that are at least halfway decent.

Walk The Line, I guess?

I liked Ray. No idea how true it was to the story, but Jamie Foxx killed it.

The Doors was great